The Ignored Granddaughter of a Murim Family - Chapter 285

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 285
* * *
‘What in the world is he talking about?’
I wanted to dismiss it as nonsense, but Namgung Ryu-cheong was not the sort of man to fabricate lies to frame someone.
I looked at Yalyu. His expressionless face revealed nothing of his inner thoughts.
I had asked Yalyu countless times what he thought of Wi Ji-baek. I remembered clearly the responses he had given me then.
He treated Wi Ji-baek as though he were less than a pebble on the roadside. His demeanor suggested he harbored no thoughts of revenge.
If he had wanted to explain himself to me, if he had wanted me to know the truth, he’d had countless opportunities to tell me. He had chosen deliberately to remain silent.
I answered numbly.
“I didn’t know. But what does it matter in this situation whether Yalyu’s biological father isn’t Wi Ji-baek?”
Wi Ji-baek had committed despicable acts—wasn’t it actually a good thing that Yalyu’s true father was not such filth?
The veins on the back of Namgung Ryu-cheong’s hand, gripping his sword, stood out sharply.
“Your mother was deceived by talk of Cheon-ma being the objective and joined hands with Yalyu.”
“….”
“And when she discovered the plan—that Cheon-ma intended to use you and Baek Li-ui-ran’s exposure to extract the Cheonma Jibow—she moved to eliminate Baek Li-ui-ran immediately.”
“….”
“But that bastard blocked her, saying he would handle it himself. And look what’s happened now.”
I murmured, listening numbly to Namgung Ryu-cheong’s words.
“People make mistakes.”
“Yeon.”
“Baek Li-ui-ran could have noticed and fled first.”
“Your mother has already investigated everything.”
“How can I trust what she says?”
Should I trust the words of someone who abandoned me as a child and now tells me to leave?
Frowning, I asked because I truly could not understand.
“And what benefit does Yalyu gain from revealing that I’m Cheon-ma’s blood?”
Namgung Ryu-cheong cried out in frustration.
“Don’t you see? Look at who’s beside you right now!”
“….”
At my silence, Namgung Ryu-cheong spoke pleadingly.
“Yeon, please.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying right now….”
My mind was in turmoil. I understood Namgung Ryu-cheong’s words, yet I didn’t want to understand them.
Then Yalyu, who had approached, let out a soft laugh toward Namgung Ryu-cheong and murmured.
“…Flee, you say.”
I felt the sensation of a hand grasping mine. It was Yalyu.
“Yeon won’t run away.”
“Ha.”
In that instant, a gasp of exasperation escaped me. The meaning contained in Yalyu’s single statement was utterly absurd.
He was right. I would not run away. Because I knew that path would never lead to happiness.
But who was responsible for things turning out this way?
Fire flashed in Namgung Ryu-cheong’s eyes.
“Don’t you dare let go of that hand!”
Namgung Ryu-cheong swung his blade as though he would sever Yalyu’s wrist, and watching the slow arc of his sword, I thrust my arm into its path.
“…!”
“…!”
Yalyu’s hand, which had been moving to block the blade with his martial technique, and Namgung Ryu-cheong’s sword both halted abruptly. Wind scattered through the dispersed energy waves.
Namgung Ryu-cheong erupted in fury.
“What are you doing!”
I didn’t answer, simply brushing away both their hands and pressing my head.
Yalyu asked with concern.
“Does your head hurt?”
Namgung Ryu-cheong let out a hollow laugh, muttering under his breath.
“Insane bastard.”
Regardless of what they said, I paid no attention, brushing away the disheveled fabric scattered by the energy waves and smoothing down my hair to restore order.
A strange silence fell as I suddenly began straightening my appearance.
Once I finished tidying myself, I lifted my head.
“Yalyu, is what Namgung Ryu-cheong said true?”
Yalyu gazed at me steadily with his blood-red eyes.
“Your biological mother who abandoned you. You’re going to believe what that human says?”
“Is it true or not?”
Yalyu, who had been blinking, answered with a face devoid of any guilt.
“It’s true.”
“…Hah.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
The reality I had been desperately evading, the ground beneath my feet—it all came crashing down.
No, truthfully, there had never been solid ground to begin with. I had merely been standing on thin ice made of lies and hypocrisy, calling it ground.
Intoxicated by the arrogance that I could change the future, by the emotion that I had changed a person. Because I pitied Yalyu. I had failed to see clearly, blinded by sympathy, loneliness, and my own desires.
I asked in a choked voice.
“…Why, exactly?”
“You said it was something that would happen anyway.”
“….”
I couldn’t breathe. It felt as though someone had their hands around my throat.
“Wasn’t this already finished?”
I knew that questioning was meaningless. That child didn’t understand what was wrong at all. Even knowing it was a futile act, I was asking anyway.
“Explain it properly. Why did you do it!”
Yalyu answered.
“You said I could be by your side.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
“Yes, I said you could be by my side. That’s right. I said that….”
I cut myself off mid-sentence, eyes widening as I cried out.
“But you never said it had to be only you!”
Yalyu tilted his head slightly, his eyes crinkling as though he genuinely didn’t understand my fury.
“Your connection to Cheon-ma has nothing to do with Baek Li-ui-ran.”
I felt as though I’d been struck across the face.
“I preferred a situation I could control rather than one that spiraled into complexity. If I’d dealt with it there first, your biological mother wouldn’t have survived either.”
“So you’re saying you spared Baek Li-ui-ran to save my mother? Is that what you’re telling me right now?”
“Everyone benefited.”
I laughed—a hollow, brittle sound.
“What about my heart?”
….
“What did my heart gain from all this?”
….
My heart that pitied you, that made excuses for you, that tried so hard to understand your circumstances as inevitable—what benefit did it receive?
Then, without warning, Yalyu seized my wrist and examined my hand.
When I opened my palm as instructed, I saw that both my palms and fingernails were soaked in blood—when had I sustained such wounds? Yet I felt no pain there. The ache came from somewhere deeper.
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“You said all you needed was for me to stay by your side, but really you wanted only yourself to remain, didn’t you?”
Yalyu lifted his gaze to meet mine.
“I simply removed those who tried to separate you from me.”
“Regardless of whether I wanted it or not.”
“It was inevitable anyway.”
“Ah. I see.”
The answer crystallized within that repetitive cycle.
“So that’s what it was.”
A question I’d carried for so long finally found its answer. My mind cleared as though fog were lifting.
I tilted my head back and laughter erupted from me. The absurdity was overwhelming.
“Ha, hahahaha!”
“Yeon?”
Yalyu called my name with careful concern.
I lifted the hand he was holding and placed it against his cheek.
“Yalyu, you said the entire world was nothing but garbage.”
Yalyu, who had fallen into Evil Person Valley, threw himself into the Demonic Cult. Afterward, as a tool of the Demonic Cult, he mocked the Murim Alliance while slaughtering the Righteous Faction—until at some point he must have discovered the truth.
That Cheon-ma had orchestrated the affair between his mother Byeok Ki-hyeon and Wi Ji-baek.
That he was being used as a tool by the very source of his suffering.
“You must have despised everything in this world that made you this way.”
….
“And you despised Cheon-ma most of all.”
….
“So you severed my neck—the neck of Cheon-ma’s blood.”
I laughed.
“Isn’t that right?”
“….”
It would have been better if he’d killed me out of hatred for my father, or even if he’d simply found me irritating and struck me down in passing.
Even as I rolled across the floor drenched in blood, I couldn’t understand why I had to die.
He severed my neck as casually as chopping wood—for a reason I myself hadn’t known: that I was Cheon-ma’s blood. And now, for that same reason, he’d cornered me again.
Everyone else could be treated that way, but not Yalyu. He was different.
“And even now… you won’t feel sorry for slashing my throat.”
Not at all. Not a shred of guilt would touch him.
I smiled.
“Because it’s already happened.”
My voice sounded strangely quiet, as if it belonged to someone else.
“I died, but I came back to life, reconciled with my father, met you, and gained the ability to wield martial arts.”
“….”
“It’s all gain.”
I had asked Yalyu once: did he love me?
But Yalyu had acted as though he didn’t understand. Now I finally grasped why.
“You see, Yalyu. Even my mother, who abandoned me, at least hoped I wouldn’t become the cause of the Main Hall conflict.”
Because she knew I didn’t want that.
Through my aunt, she at least tried to prevent my unhappiness.
“My mother abandoned me. Do you know why?”
“….”
Yalyu would never know that reason.
“She believed that for me to be happy, she had to be absent.”
And my father, too, chose to bury his relationship with my mother forever for my sake.
But Yalyu would never understand such emotions in his lifetime. Just as he knew no guilt.
Poor Yalyu.
Poor Baek Li-yeon of my past life.
I was sorry—sorry that my abilities were insufficient, that I was lacking, that I couldn’t save either of them.
“Yeon.”
I recalled my first meeting with Yalyu.
The metallic stench of blood, the suffocating terror. My vision suddenly spinning.
A dull sound that reverberated not through my ears but through my skull itself. My blood trickling down the long blade as my vision whirled. And the satisfied smile blooming at the corners of Yalyu’s mouth.
My blood-stained thumb brushed upward along Yalyu’s lips. Because of the crimson red that matched the color of blood, it appeared as though he were smiling.
“Yalyu, goodbye.”
That was how I bid farewell to my death.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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